V is for VOYAGE as in ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM

{ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM is now available to buy!}

{The cover for ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM, part II of RITES OF PASSAGE,

is courtesy of the creative genius of the British award-winning artist, Andrew Simmons.}

Can you remember how you felt when you ended FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING?

I wanted to give those of you who finished RITES OF PASSAGE quick access to Book II. It should be out this Thursday.

Book II of RITES OF PASSAGE {ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM} :

Like a ghost through a wall, Captain Samuel McCord, Texas Ranger,

has slipped from one year to the next, leaving a bit of himself with each hunt until he feels as hollow as his childhood's illusions.

It is the year 1853,

and he has tracked the only lead in a gruesome murder to the transatlantic steamer, DEMETER.

A young girl he raised from a baby has been murdered on the docks of Galveston, her face removed.

She was last seen in the company of someone only known as the Gray Man.

Now, McCord is on the hunt for this mysterious man aboard the steamer.

But hunter becomes hunted. McCord discovers that fully a fourth of the steamer's passengers are supernatural predators :

revenants ( the truth behind the myth of vampires),

Kali's nymphs (flesh-eating insects),

Kali herself,

the Amal (living shadows who drain men of their life force),

Coyote (Native American trickster and chaos bringer),

the Gahe (soul-drinking demons of Apache myth).

As the DEMETER enters the Bermuda Triangle,

each person and entity McCords meets assures him that discovering the identity of the young girl's true murderer will destroy him.

ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM is an epic historical fantasy, whose major players are --

Captain Samuel McCord :
His are haunted and haunting eyes.

He has seen too much and understood more than he wanted of it.

He appears in his late forties though his hair, turned moon-white by the trauma of seeing his parents and sister murdered,

makes him appear older to those who only glance at him. He is lean like the hunting wolf he is ...

hunting for the peace and love that always seems to elude him.

Lady Meilori Shinseen :

Born of stardust and the sea,
the alien from another dimension has lived longer than most nations.

She is on this voyage to end that long life, having lost all hope of love and peace ...

until she meets the haunted Texas Ranger that reminds her of the noble samurai she lost tragically centuries before.

There are disturbing depths of sad wisdom in her slanted jade eyes.

Depths in whose darkness swim the monsters which drive us or haunt us or both. They both call and warn at the same time.

Elu :

The Apache shaman who has been mentor and brother to McCord.

His mother is the dreaded Turquoise Woman, living projection of Earth's consciousness.

Becoming blood brothers to McCord cursed him to an existence in the Mirror World, a parallel dimension to ours.

The blood mingling also cursed McCord into becoming a drainer of the life force of others ...

if he touches them with the bare palm of his right hand. Hence, McCord always wears gloves.

The phrase "taking my gloves off" is only heard once by the outlaws who force McCord into saying them.

The Gray Man :

Many have been his names.
So many he has forgotten most of them. Dragon. Abbadon. DayStar. He goes now by Lord Hassatan.

Tall, eternally young, endlessly evil and cruel, possessed of a vast, complex intellect that makes the term "genius" pale by comparison.

A Hannibal Lector of supernatural beings.

He claims to be older than even the earth,

being the Darkness which existed when all was Void ...

until the arrival of Light and the Creation of all that is.

He wants his home back.

This voyage of the DEMETER is his way of either ending his tormented life or bringing an end to all life.

Only McCord, one lone cursed mortal, stands in his way of both goals.

The last voyage of the DEMETER is not a pleasure cruise.

It is not even the stocked pond that the undead aboard believe it to be.

It is the beginning of "The End of All Things."

Unless one cursed Texican can fight and win his own personal Alamo --

even though winning it will cost him all he holds dear.

Come aboard the doomed DEMETER

and sail with her into the depths of madness in ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

{Of course, a review of this fantasy of mine will also garner you 5 entries in my Autographed Book Contest. So if you review all 3 books of mine, you will receive 15 entries in my contest. How cool is that?}
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